Pai Gow Poker

Scoring Metrics

Win both hands

1:1

Commission

None

Split hands

Push

Edge (auto set)

1.1%

Game Rules

• Objective: split seven cards into a 5-card High hand and a 2-card Low hand so that both beat the banker's matching hands. Pai Gow Poker (牌九撲克) mixes the Chinese game of Pai Gow with American poker rankings.
• The deck: 52 cards plus one Joker. You and the banker each get seven cards.
• Hand rankings: the High hand is an ordinary poker hand. From best to worst: Five Aces, Royal Flush, Straight Flush, Four of a Kind, Full House, Flush, Straight, Three of a Kind, Two Pair, One Pair, then high card. A-2-3-4-5 is the second-highest straight (below A-K-Q-J-10, above K-Q-J-10-9).
• The Low hand: two cards, ranked as a pair (best is Aces) or by its high cards. There are no straights or flushes in a two-card hand.
• The Joker: it counts as an Ace, or it can complete a straight, a flush or a straight flush in your High hand. In the Low hand it is always an Ace. Four Aces and the Joker make Five Aces, the best hand.
• Setting your hands: your High hand must outrank your Low hand. For example, if your Low hand is a pair of Kings, your High hand must be better than a pair of Kings. The game won't let you set an illegal pair of hands.
• Placing a bet: type the amount you want to bet in the bet box. Min 1, max 500. The bet is taken from your chips when you press Deal, and it stays in the box for the next round.
• Playing a round: press Deal. You get seven cards face up and the banker's seven are dealt face down. Tap two cards to swap them until you're happy with your High and Low hands, or press Auto set to arrange them the same way the banker does. Then press Set hands and the banker's hands are turned over, Low hand first.
• Winning and losing: if both of your hands beat the banker's, you win 1:1 with no commission. If both lose, you lose your bet. If you win one hand and lose the other, it's a push and your bet comes back.
• Ties: the banker wins every tie (called a copy). Two equal hands count as a win for the banker.
• House edge: when you set your cards the same way the banker does, you win about 29.0% of rounds, push about 41.0% and lose about 30.1%, which costs about 1.1% of your bet on average. Setting your cards carefully can do better than the Auto set way, but the banker's ties keep a small edge with the house.
• Each round uses a freshly shuffled deck, and the cards are decided before they are dealt. The banker is always the house in this demo, and there's no banker rotation.
• This is a demo with play chips only. It is not linked to an account and resets when you refresh the page. You can switch between Gold coins and Diamonds between rounds; each has its own balance.